Raventale - Long Passed Days

It’s very hard to decipher some information in the booklet of this disc, because everything is written in the Russian language. Raventale is a one-man project though, with one very talented multi-instrument musician that plays drums, guitar, bass, keyboards and sampling. He delivers us an absolute masterpiece of bleak, dark and misanthropic doom/black-metal. This is seriously one of the best doom/black releases I heard in a while. His use of atmospheric, dark keyboard intros and very subtle placed samples of wind, rain or shrieking crows, works perfectly with the bleak doom/black-metal. Musically there are reverences of bands like My Dying Bride, but also of bands like Wolves In The Throne Room. I think this band is best to describe as a doom version of Wolves In The Throne Room.

There are too many highlights on this disc, but I have to tell you some. For instance the title-song called ‘Long Passed Days’ that lasts for 11 minutes, is a brilliantly build up epic story that takes you away to desolated landscapes with dark, cold forests. Or the instrumental song ‘Up For Horizon (Both Like Birds)’ with the brilliant use of shrieking crow samples. Or the song called ‘Sunset Of The Age’ which is an Anathema cover that has a blistering, long bleak guitar-solo in it that lasts for 3 minutes. Goosebumps all over!

Everything is perfectly balanced on this disc; I really can’t find one bad song or thing on this album. From the crystal clear sound, from the song structures, from the atmosphere he creates, from his voice that he uses in different ways and even from the simple but effective lay-out of this album. I fucking love Raventale!